Japan has its fair share of weird stuff, from its vending machines selling everything from groceries to underwear, to its car culture.
Awhile ago, Frosted shared on some dekotora or decoration truck models produced by tomica. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a very different beast.
The itasha, directly translatable as “painful car” or “painmobile” is a product of otaku culture crossed with the art car. So named because they are painfully expensive to decorate and equally embarassing to drive in (you’re likely not going to show up for work in a car like that.)
For awhile, the pikachu car was used to represent the itasha in my collection. However, most itasha don’t have physical modifications. Instead, they tend to be heavily decorated road cars covered in character-themed decals. Most of that changed when I found this...
The 1/64 itasha miniature car collection is a series of blind-boxed cars produced by model manufacturer Aoshima. The cars are themed after various Japanese anime.
Side-note: This format of selling blind-boxed collectables is how most Japanese companies sell impulse buy products and this may very well be the inspiration for most of the blind boxed collectables available in the market today.
Inside the box, the car and its display base is held securely in place by a resealable blister card which is pretty clever if I’m honest.
We managed to pull a blue Mazda vertex decorated in that signature itasha style, this particular piece being decorated based on the show/comic, Lucky Star.
The model itself is pretty intricate, which is expected considering it’s primarily targeted at the teenage and adult market.
The car features various characters from the show and comic.
The car comes with rubber tyres, which is always a pretty nice touch.
In conclusion, I think this is pretty much the definitive representation for itasha at the 1/64 scale, with its crisp licensed tampos covering pretty much every open space on the body, it’s one of the best representations of a specific part of Japanese car culture there is out there.